


"Butter Side Down"

by RogerStenning



Series: The Roic Files [7]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 10:55:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogerStenning/pseuds/RogerStenning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Welcome to the game of Mayhem and Chaos - Reaction Rolls obligatory!</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Butter Side Down"

**"Butter Side Down"**  
  
A Vorkosigan FanFic  
By Roger Stenning  
  
Based on the characters, situations, and universe created, set, and owned by  
Lois McMaster Bujold. The contents of this story are for personal, non-commercial  
use only. Any use of Lois McMaster Bujold's copyrighted material or trademarks  
anywhere in this story should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights  
or trademarks. This disclaimer must remain as an integral part of this file.  
The material in this story may be used/abused by other FanFic authors, provided  
that credit is given where credit is due - "Turnabout is fair play"!  
Copyright 2010, Roger Stenning.  
  
***  
  
This FanFic was inspired by the events  
portrayed in the Vorkosigan Saga,  
created by Lois McMaster Bujold.  
  
***  
  
Many thanks to [coalboy ](http://coalboy.livejournal.com/)for the proofreading :-)  
  
***

It was mid-morning and, with the recruitment of a new Armsman a couple of months earlier, Roic had finally managed to get off the night shift. _Well, it only took two and a half years. Not bad, considering._

It was winter, and the snow was, as usual, piled up in drifts all over Vorbarr Sultana; with Count Vorkosigan on Sergyar doing his Viceroy thing, it devolved to Lord Vorkosigan to fulfil his Count's Voice role; a particularly interesting vote on educational reform for the masses (one of Countess Vorkosigan's pet projects, of course) was coming up in the Council of Counts in the next week, and Miles (who naturally adopted the Countess' project as his own) and his allies had been strategising their lobbying all week, with meetings at all hours of the day. The pint-sized Imperial Auditor was currently rooting around the attic to Vorkosigan House, looking, so he'd informed Roic, for an obscure precedent with which to befuddle his political adversaries. Lady Ekaterin had just rolled her eyes ceiling-wards at that one, a sign that Roic took to mean " _Oh God, he's up to no good again_ ", in the best possible sense, of course.

So, with nothing else to rivet his attention, Pym and the advance party down at Vorkosigan Surleau for the usual post-Winterfair winter break preparations, and all quiet on the other domestic fronts, Roic had returned to his Armsman duties of yet another hopefully boring day in the life of a Vorkosigan Armsman. _Yeah, right. Fat sodding chance, in this damned museum of mayhem and chaos!_

He didn't know what made him dodge and roll to the left as he conducted his rounds that morning: The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly just stood up all at the same time. Acting on that feeling had saved his neck more than once as a street guard, and he'd come to trust it, so he didn't pause, he didn't look around, he just dived, rolling, coming to an undignified heap against the skirting boards and the wall with a solid thud - just as an equally solid thud sounded right where he'd just been standing. Only it wasn't just a thud. There was a metallic twang to it. A twang that he knew from experience only came from tempered steel used in fighting knives, a sort of rigid but flexible tempered steel that could slice through muscles, sinews, and a few bones as well.

He came up, snarling spinning and drawing his stunner, ready to take apart the intruder that had just tried to kill him, only to find at the end of his spinning about, that he was aiming his heavy stunner smack dab between Lord Vorkosigan's eyes as he looked down into the space at the foot of the stairwell, where he'd just dropped his seal knife, which was now sitting, point down, quivering, a half-inch embedded into the solid wooden parquet flooring tile where it had landed. Roic realised that he'd also heard a shouted "SHIT!" as he hit the floor.

There was a pause of maybe two seconds as each man absorbed what had just happened, when Roic suddenly realised just who the hell it was that he was aiming at, and snapped the weapon up to the vertical, took his finger off the trigger (first pressure, for Gods' sake!) swallowed, and took a slightly shuddering deep breath.

Miles, who had gone a slight shade of pale, coughed, shrugged, and nodded to the pile of boxes that he'd been carrying, now lying on the stairs in a heap, the contents of one having nicely spilled its pile of papers all the way down to the foot of the steps.  
  
"Sorry, Roic. That never happened before. They always seem to land butter side down, don't they?"

Roic had by now holstered his stunner and re-applied its retention strap back in place. He looked up and blinked. _What?_ "I'm sorry, my lord, Butter side down?"

Miles shrugged, an apologetic smile on his face. "Yeah. Knives are like toast. When you want them to land butter side up, they almost always piss you off by landing butter side down."  
  
"You're equating toast with a stiletto knife, My lord?"

"Well, not _per se_ , so to speak, but knives, toast, and butter, seem to go hand-in-hand, don't they?"  
  
Roics mind seemed to flip through 360 degrees. He must have gone cross-eyed or something, as Lord Vorkosigan shrugged. "Well, that's how it seems to me, anyhow."

Roics mind flipped again. Daggers, toast, and butter?! This man managed to survive a ten year career in ImpSec?! _Gawd, They probably had to re-write Vorsod's Law because of him!_  
  
Shaking his head, he stepped over to the knife, and carefully worked it free of the wooden floor tile, and handed it, hilt-first, to Lord Vorkosigan, who slipped it back into its sheath, and blinked. "Thanks. Ah. No wonder. The retention strap's perished. Would've bounced onto the floor in the sheath, otherwise. I'll send it off to be repaired."

Roic shook his head again, and bent to picking up all the papers Miles had dropped.  
  
A couple of hours later, in his lunch break, he finished off his latest letter to Taura, ending it with a dirty chuckle to himself as he wrote " _This job may well get me killed through some insane and ludicrous accident of fate, karma, or just plain cack-handed clumsiness, but I'm not joking when I say this, if he sticks "He died, butter side down" on my bloody grave stone, I may well come back and haunt him!"_

_FIN  
_


End file.
